Bloomberg Suggests Partial Evacuation Ahead of New Storm

New Mayor City Michael Bloomberg on Tuesday recommended residents in the city’s lowest-lying areas — including the south shore of Staten Island and the Rockaways in Queens — evacuate in advance of the nor’easter expected to hit the region Wednesday.

Last week, the mayor issued a mandatory evacuation of roughly 375,000 people in advance of superstorm Sandy. Mr. Bloomberg said he wasn’t ordering a full evacuation of those low-lying areas, known as Zone A, but on Tuesday he urged residents living there to move to higher ground.

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A Staten Island man stokes a fire Tuesady near a group of New York Police Department officers. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg urged residents in the city’s lowest-lying neighborhoods to evacuate ahead of an expected nor’easter.

“We are going to go to a few very low areas where normally you would have flooding and try to evacuate people,” Mr. Bloomberg said at a City Hall news briefing. “We’re not ordering a general evacuation from Zone A.”

The mayor ordered all city parks, playgrounds and beaches to be closed from noon Wednesday until noon Thursday. He said this nor’easter presented an elevated threat because of the extensive damage to the landscape left by storm surges and strong winds last week.

“The danger is a little bit greater because you have trees that have had enormous amount of water around their base and if we have snow, wet snow, on the trees, that brings down trees because of the weight of the snow,” he said. “And also some of the sand that had acted as a barrier before has been washed away.”

The mayor and other officials said the looming storm is not expected to pack the same wallop as Sandy, but they preferred to err on the side of safety.“Even though it’s not anywhere near as strong as Sandy, nor strong enough in normal times for us to evacuate anybody, out of precaution and because of the changing physical circumstances, we are going to go to some small areas and ask those people to go to higher ground,” Mr. Bloomberg said.

The storm expected, expected to arrive Wednesday and last into nighttime hours, is forecast to bring heavy rains, high winds and possibly snow.

Police officers will be making announcements over loudspeakers in the lowest-lying areas to encourage residents to evacuate. The city is scrambling to make arrangements to transport people who need assistance.

The Bloomberg administration is ordering all property owners and contractors to secure their construction sites and buildings in advance of the storm. All exterior construction must cease at noon Wednesday, the mayor ordered.

Mr. Bloomberg also recommended that motorists remain off the roads during the height of the storm.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo designated debris piles residents stacked in front of their homes in storm-affected areas as a health hazard and directed all local governments to clear the debris as soon as possible because high winds from the looming storm could turn loose debris into projectiles.

Mr. Cuomo also assigned 4,000 National Guard personnel already in the area to help with post-Sandy relief efforts to aid with debris removal, and he has positioned search-and-rescue teams from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in the region.

The governor directed utility crews shipped in last week from states across the country to remain in New York to help if the impending nor’easter downs more trees and power lines in the region.

“We’re on storm watch for tomorrow and Thursday,” Mr. Cuomo said. “We’ve had a little good news but we live by the adage, prepare for the worst and hope for the best.”